5 reasons to avoid Wildseed Cafe, 3 Park Lane, Singapore 798387

April 16, 2017

It really is almost as rare as lightning striking the shortest tree in a field when I chance upon a cafe/restaurant/bistro that I would caution people to stay away from. And in this case, despite some of my friends telling me that I should just let it be or write in to give feedback, I've felt indignant enough about my experience that I'm posting a negative review of Wildseed Cafe at the Seletar Aerospace park. Recently I have chanced upon quite a few of these "we are hipster so we will charge you exorbitant prices for average, 'grammable food" places. They treat customers like carrot heads they can chop and I'm sick of it. Stop it ah, new hipster cafes. It's unfair to other cafes that really put in the effort.

So here are the reasons why Wildseed Cafe ruined a perfectly Good Friday for me.

1. You have to try and get your own seats.

There was no seating order, ala "Hawker Style" seating. It was drizzling as we drove up to the ulu Seletar Aerospace but found one side of the bungalow PACKED with people on a public holiday at 1230pm. We approached a server, who told us we have to wait for people to finish and find our own seats. We were also told that we have to queue at the cashier to order our food and pay up. So there were two separate queues.

Seriously, everyone and their grandmas, babies and dogs are all milling around. There were quite a few big tables of the entire clans having hipster food, even though I'm sure ah gong is not really into chilli fries.

The funny thing was, there was an entirely empty half of the bungalow which had plenty of tables and chairs. Apparently that area opens up at 4pm and we weren't allowed to sit there to wait, nor have any food or drinks there. If I was the manager, knowing the public holiday crowd, I would have opened it up at least to let people wait, and call them when tables opened up! No. It was every man for themselves.

There was a nice florist inside, but nobody was in the mood to buy any flowers, I think. Though the staff I must say, were trying their best to run around serving food, which took a long time to arrive and in reverse order.

2. Big menu, limited food selection.

There was no brunch menu (available only on Sat/Sun) even though it was a public holiday. Especially when its Easter weekend and I'd imagine eggs to be very much in demand. There were pages and pages of drinks and dessert though. For savoury mains, there was only 4 pastas (and one was out!), a burger and sausage.

3. Everything was pricey.

Curry popcorn for $8???

4. Food was not great.

All could be forgiven if the food was enjoyable, but they were not. Our main gripe with the AlpsPasta ($18) was that it was SUPER oily. There was like a 2mm layer of oil at the end. And the homemade butter or the chive oil made the pasta taste slightly rancid. It's that feeling of having stale heavy oil dripping down your chin without you realising.

And it wasn't salty enough, so we asked for some salt which did not come in a shaker because they don't have them (it came in a small bowl, and we had to pinch and sprinkle it ourselves, salt bae style).

The Rocket Pesto (S$20) came with three huge eggs and is the only vegetarian option on the menu. Luckily this was in stock, or my friend would be quite disappointed. The eggs and portion of this was huge though.

The F'ed Up Fries ($12) was indeed f'ed up because they were super salty... Couldn't taste any of that pickled mango chutney in there. It also came after we finished our mains.

Desserts were passable...? But I wouldn't really see that as their strength since they were ready-made. The lemon meringue tart (S$7.50) was really really sweet. Also this was probably smaller than my palm, and it's $7.50.

The Rojak Banana Cake (S$7.50) was probably the nicest thing we had that that day and it didn't even look very appetising or moist (it wasn't). And this thin slice cost $7.50 mind you.

5. Coffee was burnt.

Ended the lunch with a shitty latte (S$6). That was supposed to be a swan, but I supposed looking like something else fits how it tasted (bitter, burnt, too hot).

All in all, STAY AWAY. If you're thinking of checking this place out because it looks so pretty on Instagram, know that those are just pictures. Everything can look pretty with proper lighting, but can it taste good? Can one get a table without being left out there to fend for oneself? No. So don't be a statistic. You've been warned.

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